Spitzer Collects Checks, Lectures, Makes Joke

About 75 tables at $10,000 each were filled for Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s fund-raiser in Manhattan with plenty of lobbyists, Democrats and – uncommonly – even a couple of his staffers in attendence to glad hand the crowd.
The packed room included Rich Baum, the governor’s chief of staff, and his new sidekick, Bruce Gyory, a former lobbyist who joined the Spitzer team last month.
Staffers don’t usually make it to the governor’s fund-raisers, but these are not normal times.
Gyory did what he has done for much of the past 24 years as a lobbyist – he mingled. Baum, who is not known for his gregarious side, did the same.
Spitzer gave a serious speech, not the kind of thanks-for-coming, thanks-for-giving address. Instead, he talked about the importance of innovation to the economy of New York.
He warmedÂ the audience with a joke, saying he went to a doctor for a stress test, asked the physician if he’d seen the papers in recent months, and said he didn’t need such a test.